Terra Beata juiced for business

Evelyn and David Ernst stand in a cranberry-filled pond at harvest time with some of their product in 2013. They operate Terra Beata Farms near Lunenburg. (STAFF)

It would have been fun to be a fly on the wall at the Halifax logistics centre when the latest order came in for a transport truck and trailer to be dispatched to Terra Beata Farms Ltd.

The business, on Heckmans Island, near Lunenburg, had a shipment of juice destined for Ontario.

The dispatcher likely had to Google Map that one.

But from the sounds of things, more transport trucks will soon be dispatched for pickups at the remote bit of peat bog where Terra Beata was founded in 1998 by David and Evelyn Ernst.

“This shipment of ready-to-drink and pure juices arrived at the warehouse this morning in advance of distribution to 150 Loblaws and Zehrs grocery stores throughout Ontario,” Evelyn Ernst said Friday in an interview.

Juicing up the Ontario market is a big development for the business, Ernst said.

“This is Canadian fruit juice, bottled in Canada and available for more Canadians.”

The shipment constituted 20 pallets of fresh juice loaded in a standard 12-metre transport trailer. The goods should be on store shelves by about Feb. 1.

Terra Beata has shipped high-value versions of its cranberry, blueberry and sour cherry juices in small bottles to Sobeys stores in Ontario for about five years. These concentrated juices are used in various recipes, including for smoothies.

This latest shipment of ready-to-drink cocktails, which consumers can drink right from the container, is significant, as it puts the brand in front of thousands of more potential customers.

“We still have lots of marketing and promotional work to do,” Ernst said of the venture.

There will be another busy scene at Heckmans Island this week as an entire shipping container is loaded with Terra Beata juices for transfer to the Port of Halifax and then by sea to China.

This is also a significant development for the company, which has until recently shipped mostly frozen berries to European markets.

“Shipping juice presents challenges, as this is a heavy product to transport,” Ernst said.

Terra Beata still operates the original five-hectare cranberry farm on Heckmans Island but also processes more than two million kilograms per year of cranberries from 25 farms in Atlantic Canada. The business also operates a cleaning and packing operation in Richibucto, N.B.